17.10.26
Meet artist Jesper Graakjær at ART56°
This October, Jesper Graakjær from Skjern brings the 2026 season at ART56° to a close – a life in art that has wound from a pig farm and a draper's shop to life drawing at Aarhus Academy of Fine Arts and paintings that emerge from the happy accide...
Photo: Jesper Graakjær
When: Saturday to Wednesday, 17–28 October, 1:00–5:00 PM
Where: ART56°, Æ Gammel Havn 9, Hvide Sande
What: Open studio with paintings by Jesper Graakjær. Free entry.
Organiser: ART56° artist residence
Jesper Graakjær grew up in Stauning, where he mucked out the pig shed before cycling to school in Skjern and spent his evenings sketching in his small room, captivated by the elegant fashion illustrations in magazines. The artistic impulse was always there, but life took him through other doors first: an apprenticeship in a draper's shop in Vejle, life drawing at Aarhus Academy of Fine Arts during military service, his own children's clothing shop, part-ownership of Hotel Skjern, and eventually a wine import business – navigated with considerable help from Christina Schønberg, Ib Schønberg's daughter-in-law, who swept into French wine merchants in a blue blazer and announced that Jesper Graakjær had arrived.
He retired at 65 and has painted happily ever since. His process is disarmingly simple: he smears paint around the canvas with a rag or brush, sits back and stares – and then coaxes out the face he sees emerging from the forms and colours. Fast, instinctive, unhesitating – the habit of a life drawing class that never left him.
Come and see which faces are waiting in the paint.
This October, Jesper Graakjær from Skjern brings the 2026 season at ART56° to a close – a life in art that has wound from a pig farm and a draper's shop to life drawing at Aarhus Academy of Fine Arts and paintings that emerge from the happy accidents of paint on canvas. Open studio Saturday to Wednesday: come and see which faces appear.
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